Load Shedding has been one of the major issues South Africa is facing. Solar has taken over to end load shedding and provide the necessary power to households and companies. The city of Cape Town has set a record for the number of applicants for solar power installation.
According to City of Cape Town’s statement on Monday, this year’s end-April has been the highest month to receive requests with more than 2 300 new requests.
“February may have shattered all records for solar PV installation applications to the city, but March and April have both already surpassed this,” said Mayor Hill-Lewis.
“The city has already received 2,333 solar PV installation applications so far this year, with close to 700 in March alone, making it the biggest month to date. Just the first four months of 2023 account for a sizeable 21% of all solar PV applications received since records began.”
“These figures show an energised market response to Cape Town’s incentives for businesses and residents with solar PV generation capacity.”
According to Bloomberg and data shared, the city received almost 11 000 applications for small-scale embedded generation since 2020. The major requests for solar have been from residential, while most installed capacity is for commercial site.
“To make going solar even more attractive, the city is raising the residential, small-scale embedded generation tariff by 10,15% for 2023/24, plus a 25c per kWh incentive. The city is also significantly reducing the monthly AMI meter Administration fee in 2023/24. This is aside from the new national tax incentives for solar PV investment.”
The city said sometime later this year the residents will be able to start selling their power for cash, while the city will start paying businesses cash for their excess solar in June.
